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Comment by jonathanstrange | Hacker News Reader

The Russian military seems to be extremely unmotivated, and rightly so. This is Putin's war. Nobody else wanted it. There is evidence that lower ranks in the Russian military don't want to kill their neighbors who mostly speak the same language. Morale is very low, as many cases of abandoned vehicles and surrender illustrate. Unfortunately, the longer a war goes on, the more both sides harden and the more brutal the war becomes.

I wonder if it wouldn't help for the West to guarantee political asylum for Russian deserters, maybe even with a new identity for them. But I don't know if this is practically achievable, at least not without extensive vetting and not as long as they are PoWs. Has this ever been attempted?

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+1 to a witness-protection-type program for Russian soldiers. How can we expect them to want to stop without it? The choice is: carry out your questionable orders, or be court-martialed and be sentenced to treason by a stone-cold regime.

The decision is pretty obvious for most.

Ukraine is offering complete amnesty and 40000 euro for deserters.

Ukraine has already offered to pay defectors, at a significantly higher rate than the compensation Russia pays to their family if they are killed.

Ukraine is playing this whole thing, so far, brilliantly. The time to prepare since Crimea was annexed was apparently used very, very well.

They have been constantly battling Russian/Russian backed forces in Donbass as well. That's going to have given them valuable experience over the last 8 years.

Anyone who has worked in public leadership will recognize that Zelensky has been putting on a diplomacy/PR/propaganda masterclass. His decisions and actions will be studied for a long time to come as an example of how to gain and exert soft power, and how to translate soft power to material power.

Yup, and the reason it’s working is Zelenskyy is putting himself at huge risk as part of it. Risk like that cannot be faked, and people know it. People know that some of the stuff is flashy PR stunts and exaggerations, but it doesn’t matter because Zelenskyy is clearly willing to risk his life for this. Like, an enormous, enormous risk. He has maybe a 50% chance of surviving this. Absolute legend. And we can see the whole country is cut from the same cloth.

That will to fight matters more than the sophistication of their weapons. Weapons without the will to fight just go right into the enemy’s hands as you surrender. In a sense, soft power then is the vastly more important power.

If Kyiv falls that is 0%. The risk is a lot higher to him, he can't just walk out of this or be evac'd. The Russians have a price on his head and want him dead because they believe that that will break the Ukrainian spirit, which I highly doubt will be the effect, if anything it will spur them on.

Zelensky has broad cultural appeal in Ukraine (or you could frame it as "he's not polarizing and isn't hated by a large fraction of the country" which I think is the better way to look at it). How else would someone become president with such a limited political background? Killing him would be a textbook way to make a martyr.

I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for the Russians to read the ideological room. The details of this operation seems predicated on Russian misunderstanding of who they were dealing with. An entire generation has grown up living with the background threat of Russian aggression and this point has really been driven home sine 2014. Expecting the people and leaders of Ukraine to not be mentally prepared for that comes across like the nation state version of the feds showing up on the doorstep of a bunch of apocalypse preaching crazies expecting an easy win and then being baffled that their victims prefer to die together.

Or something might happen and Ukraine might just roll over. Nobody knows yet. Time will tell.

That could be part of the plan so. Worst case, Russia is creating a martyr. Hell, the more I think about it the less that invasion makes sense...

I think that is the collected western view of it. Everyone is baffled of the ignorance and ... well, mostly not finding words to describe the enormous disconnect from reality that russian leaders are showing.

The first wave of soldiers from Russia was kids with normal walkie talkies unencrypted communication thinking they are doing a normal manouver and suddenly realising they are at war.

This is brilliant, why stop at political asylum? Change the narrative for attacking soldiers as a way to escape a regime and make some money. If you incentivized deserting without consequences that would be interesting. If each soldier was paid 10k to dessert and pick a country to immigrate to. Total cost 1.9billion on 190k soldiers. If you don’t dessert and join Ukraine in their fight you get 100k.

it's actually 40 TEUR

https://www.dailysabah.com/world/europe/kyiv-offers-over-40k...

The asylum for deserters probably wouldn't work if they have family back in Russia.

Though if invasion failing is what finally takes down Putin's regime, then the deserters might likely be granted pardons by the next regime.

If they are still alive.

Wait, we're talking about deserters who would have opted to take political asylum in Europe instead of fighting. Why would they be dead?

Novichok

There are a few steps between sneaking away from your unit and securing political asylum in Europe.

Do you sneak away at the front? The opposition is hunting infiltrators, will they ask questions or shoot first? Do you sneak out behind the front? Your own side is likely to dispense quick "justice" and report you as KIA if you're caught (less trouble). How do you get to a border with a Western country? Do you stay in Ukraine and wait for things to settle down before making your move? That's a bet that you won't find yourself in a Russian-occupied zone. And so on.

How willing would Russia be to admit they deserted instead of surrendering or capture? Each family you punish is like telling their every colleague, relative, neighbor, and friend your army is faltering.

Why not allow the families of deserters to immigrate into Ukraine as well?

putin's war or not it's the result that matters

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